


The Changeling

by Remember When (scribblemyname)



Category: Blank Space - Taylor Swift (Music Video)
Genre: Backstory, Breakup, Changelings, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Romantic Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-02
Updated: 2015-06-02
Packaged: 2018-03-28 22:42:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3872464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblemyname/pseuds/Remember%20When
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her family thought she was their own Taylor, the one they'd given birth to, and wrote off her eccentricities as the privileges of wealth.</p><p>She was not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [possibilityleft](https://archiveofourown.org/users/possibilityleft/gifts).



Allow me to introduce you to a world at the edge of tall, dark trees, sunlight glowing warmly between them—a world sitting between manicured lawns and flowing fountains and the mansion at the heart of the grounds. It is a house that bespeaks the natural world but within its walls, the unnatural rules with fae delight, with a hall of paintings that shape reality, animals and portals above the sweeping grand staircase, filled with the warm grace of a wealthy woman inclined to be generous, inclined to make men wish to be better, to be more. It is a house of whim and whimsy, where the gates open to those who arrive, uncertain what they will find, but certain they want to know about what they have heard.

The Introduction

* * *

_Changeling._

Their own daughter had been beautiful, elegant; even as a tiny thing, her smile drew you in with a glance. But they were rich and didn't care to raise the girl themselves, instead leaving her mostly in the care of her nanny. When the child became fussy and troublesome with a slight gleam in her eye and with something less innocent though no less sincere blossoming at the edge of her smile—

Well, they didn't notice. They didn't understand. They hadn't barred their house or windows or even the nursery with iron. They didn't know her for not their own.

Taylor came from wealth and fine upbringing. She had the right tutors, was finished in the right school, and won the right ribbons and awards riding the family horses from the right lineage. She dressed elegantly with an uncanny grace better than merely good upbringing, and what eccentricities she possessed were put down to the whims of the rich and privileged.

And she had men. The right men. The beautiful men. They came and admired her with pleasure in their eyes. They took in the sparkling gleam in hers, the vivacity, the joy for life, her accomplishments, and they overlooked that though many men had come into her life, they all walked out again.

 

 

_Taylor._

"Miss Taylor."

"Not now," she told the maid as she placed a necklace, glittering cool and diamond, around her neck and made herself presentable. She did not have to make herself beautiful: she was always beautiful, uncannily beautiful. She did not know what to do about that, but it had always been so, a natural fact, so she shrugged her shoulders into a shawl, examined herself in the mirror one last time, and put on a charming smile.

She was going to a dinner party, and she loved to visit. She loved the men she met, and she could shape herself to their every whim long enough to catch them, but eventually it would be nice to find one that understood love, understood how to love and what she wanted from them. Men were so frail, so fickle, and while they knew how to play the simpler rules of the game, she played by a more advanced set that she seemed to have been born knowing.

The maid gave no thought nor voice to being brushed off. She helped Miss Taylor into her wrap and waited to give her the note from an ex-lover requesting reparation for his car.

None of the men ever received reparation. They all went into a relationship with a statement that they understood the rules. It meant nothing to Taylor that they proved they most certainly did not.

 

 

 

_Changeling._

Her parents never noticed, never knew, never understood. Taylor was their own Taylor (she was not). Taylor had her own house inherited when she came of age. Taylor wanted to get married and provide them with grandchildren. Taylor was theirs.

And if she had any eccentricities, surely no more than any other girl of her age and station experimenting playfully with life. Her cats and her horses inside the house were merely her well-trained and well-bred pets (never mind, Taylor talked to them comfortably inside their minds, a sharp command instantly heeded—as natural to her as breathing). Her capricious moods were merely the natural result of being indulged (rightfully) from such a young age (they were not, and fae are by nature capricious, willful, and play by an entirely separate set of rules than mortal men).

Taylor was simply Taylor, like any other girl.

(But of course, she was not.)

 

 

 

Part, the First


	2. Chapter 2

"I've never seen anything like that," Sean told her. He had spent the last few hours at the party listening to her stories and at least another one before that hearing the stories told about her. They all seemed exaggerated and impossible when actually faced with the creature herself.

Taylor was elegant, beautiful, fascinating, and her brilliant smile drew him in with the faint mischievous quirk at one edge. "I can show you," she offered easily.

She asked for forever— _"Don't move in if you don't intend to stay."_

She promised him wonders— _"You will have my full attention."_

She wanted the same.

They never could say they hadn't been warned.

* * *

She painted him in magic colors, weaving some of his very essence into the painting. She would keep this one, bind him in golden frames and hang him on her wall. He was perfect because she was perfect, and she knew that this one would last. He would not disappoint her.

His eyes peeked up from under dark lashes and a tilted head when he thought she wasn't looking. She drew his gaze and held it when they mingled in crowds, when they wandered the grounds of her house. When he looked straight ahead, it was with an almost palpable sense of her standing beside him, beautiful and unattainable to any but him.

He was perfect. He was human. He was...

On the phone.

In the middle of their conversation, so certain he was being reasonable when he failed to respond to her last question with more than an absent hum of acknowledgement.

Fury bubbled up in her chest, but she let it be.

Taylor was born knowing the rules of the game, and men were always granted three.

* * *

He was the most beautiful man in the room and had seen far more than any of them. He had seen her grounds and portals into other worlds, seen animals obey her commands and walk about her house as their subjects, for in her own house, Taylor was queen and she had claimed him as her king.

He was beautiful beside her, strong jaw, intent gaze looking at...

Another woman.

It was a mere glance, an admiring look over her hair, her dress, then eyes returned warmly to Taylor as though she would not be displeased.

She was displeased, furious. To neglect and insult her so burned as though he had actually wounded her. Jealousy filled the spaces in her heart. That was twice.

* * *

But she was beautiful. She was compelling. Merely looking at her made men want her. Knowing her thin lips and fierce displeasure was one infraction away from breaking over him did not make want to leave.

Until he did. Leave that is, on a two-day business trip and called her from the plane. Had he spoken to her beforehand, perhaps things would have been different, but they were not.

He had promised her forever, carved it into living wood.

He had promised her attention and let her paint him to gaze on when she could not have him by her side.

He had broken his promises.

* * *

She removed the phone from their relationship. He defended and demanded, looking down his nose condescendingly at her instead of requesting forgiveness or promising to change.

She threw a flowerpot at his head and reminded him she was more beautiful than the other women that caught his wandering eye. He said he believed her, but his attention was insufficient. It did not match hers.

She cut and burnt his clothes in a last warning, sparing him one last warning on his return made upon his things instead of on him.

But he stared at her in surprise. He said, "We can work this out," and implied she was being unreasonable.

He had promised. He had been warned. He was not perfect.

* * *

She cut his name out of the living wood of her tree, erasing a part of himself he had given to her. She destroyed the paintings of him she had made, and he could not understand why he gasped for breath, why he was helpless beneath her hands. She had shown him magic when they met, given him apples that granted youth and strength. Now, she took them back with another apple, and he could not spit it out fast enough.

He was human, he was a man, and men were notoriously slow of understanding, so she drove him out by destroying his car, final proof that her demands would be met or he would leave. She took back everything she had ever given him, every favor, every kiss, then wrapped herself in a shroud of indifference and went back into her house.

Tears smarted behind her eyes, but not for long. She would try again with another man, and he would be perfect.

 

Part the Last


End file.
